Monday, May 7, 2012

My Forbidden Past (1951)

“Beautiful
figure underneath those clothes, I imagine.”

“And
you thought it wasn’t worth waiting for.”

There
are so many classic films that I wish were available on DVD. My Forbidden Past starring Ava Gardner
and Robert Mitchum is one of the several classic films I wish I could add to my
collection. It is not one of the greatest films ever made but Ava Gardner gives
one of her best performances.

Barbara
Beaurevel (Gardner) has been having an affair with Dr. Mark Lucas(Mitchum).
Mark is leaving for South America to study so he can make professor at Tulane.
He wants Barbara to come away with him and she wants to desperately. When she
gets back to her house she quickly packs but her sneaky slimy cousin Paul (Melvyn
Douglas) manipulates her into staying to not ruin the family name. Barbara
writes her regrets to Mark but says she still loves him.

Months
later an attorney comes to Barbara’s home to tell her that she has inherited
money from her mother’s Crandall family. Her witch of an aunt and Paul lie to
the attorney telling him that Barbara has died and turn the man away. Both
mother and son are money hungry and nasty people they desperately want Barbara’s
money but they do not want the shame of the name with it.

The
day Mark’s ship returns she tells her aunt that she wants to go down to the
docks to meet her other cousin who is also on the ship. Paul goes down with her
and notices she is looking for Mark. When Mark walks off the ship he is cold to
her and tells her he got married while he was away. Barbara is devastated. She
knows the attorney was at her house and goes to him seeking the money. As she
leaves the attorney’s office he says that he does not like her smile there is
something behind it.

When
Paul finds out what Barbara has done he bursts into her room in the morning and
pulls her out of bed. She slaps him in the face but he likes it. He and his
mother are upset with her for taking Crandall money. Barbara’s grandmother
Carrie Crandall was a notorious woman with a bad reputation. Barbara does not
care it is her money that has come down to her and she wants to do what she
wants with it. Paul and his mother begin to scheme of ways to get Barbara’s
money.

Barbara
is throwing a party at her aunt’s house like they used to. She wants Mark and
his wife Corinne to come. She personally visits Corinne to give her the
invitation but also to see if Corinne really loves Mark. Corinne admits that
she is a social climber and will not be happy if Mark does not make a lot of
money. At the party Barbara and Mark talk about what happened after he left. He
tells he got her letter that she never wanted to see him again. Paul did not
deliver her letter to Mark which is why Mark was cold to her.

After
the party Barbara confronts Paul about the letter but offers her dear cousin a
deal. She noticed that Corinne was attracted to Paul at the party. She tells
her cousin that she will give him fifty thousand dollars to start his own brokerage
firm if he can seduce Corinne and get her to leave Mark.

Barbara’s
plan goes well for a while. Corinne does fall in love with Paul but one night
things go wrong and he accidentally kills Corinne. Barbara shows up not long
after and so does Mark. The town thinks Mark is guilty and he is put on trial.
Barbara cannot bear to see her former love accused of something he did not do
and yells out in court that it was she and her cousin who killed Corinne.

Alright
so definitely not the greatest story ever but let me tell you Ava Gardner was
fabulous. There were certain shots of her face that were absolutely stunning
especially the ones of her in the garden during the party. Gardner was very
subtle playing her character’s emotions of anger and hurt and sadness. She
really played the part just right. Gardner was a good actress but after reading
that she really did not care in her earlier career you can see that in some of
her performances but in this film she looked like she cared and did an
incredible job.

Robert
Mitchum was good but he felt awfully miscast as a doctor from the late 1800s.
You can believe him to be a former Northerner who had to gamble his way through
school and work hard to get where he is but it is just hard to really accept
him in this sort of role. Mitchum and Gardner did have excellent chemistry
though, I wish they had made a better film together, they would have been great
in a Noir together.

Now
I love seeing Melvyn Douglas in films. His characters in the thirties were always
charming and sweet and nice but in this film he was slimy and no good. He did a
fabulous job because I really hated his character so much!

My Forbidden Past is not a very good
film the plot has a lot of holes and is very thin but for what we are given and
the performances by Ava Gardner, Robert Mitchum, and Melvyn Douglas make up for
the thinness. The opening scene alone is worth sitting through the film. It
opens up with Mitchum and Gardner by a river. Gardner is lying down in the
grass and opens her eyes to see Mitchum standing above her. There is no
dialogue here and it is just gorgeous. Whenever My Forbidden Past becomes available on DVD I will surely be buying
it simply because it is one of Ava Gardner’s best acted films and for the
beautiful opening sequence.

About Me

I am une cinephile to every inch of the word. I started this blog to share my love for movies and what I have learned about them along the way. I like and watch all kinds of movies. For the movie lover in all of you out there, I hope you enjoy this blog.